Indian trap shooter Manavjit Singh Sandhu was earlier ranked 16th in the world in the men's trap category. The 37-year-old has 1228 rating points and is behind leader Russian Alexey Alipov (1437) and Italian Giovanni Pellielo (1298).

Manavjit produced some excellent shooting to clinch the men's trap gold medal ahead of a two-time Olympic champion and another equally proven marksman Michael Diamond at the ISSF Shotgun World Cup in Tucson, USA.

Ronjan Sodhi and Manavjit Singh Sandhu, are the brains behind the first Indian Shotgun Open. It is a first-of-its-kind shooting league, that lets inexperienced shooters compete with the experienced ones.

The Indian Shotgun Open, like the Indian Premier League in cricket, seeks to encourage young shooters to compete with the top guns while giving them a chance to win big prizes with the help of a unique Handicap System.

The tournament, however, started on a sour note for the Indian women trap shooters as none of them cleared the qualifying hurdle. Shreyasi Singh was the best-placed Indian at 25th position after she shot 64 over three rounds.

It was a disappointing day for the Indian shooters. While Gagan Narang and Sanjeev Rajput failed to qualify for the 50m Rifle 3 Positions finals, Manavjit Singh Sandhu was out of contention for the Men's Trap finals.

Indian shooter Manavjit Singh Sandhu today fared dismally and finished 25th out of 34 competitors on day one of the qualification round of the men's trap event at the Olympic Games here and has extremely slim chances of making it to the finals on Monday.

High on confidence, Indian shooters will begin their Olympic campaign at the Royal Artillery Barracks on Saturday amid expectation that the marksmen would be able to deliver the goods and fetch a few medals.

This would be the third Olympics after qualifying for the Athens and Beijing extravaganza, for India's top trap shooter Manavjit Singh Sandhu. In the 2008 Olympics, Manavjit Singh Sandhu finished a disappointing 12th.

Gold continued to elude Indian shooters as the trio of Manavjit Singh Sandhu, Mansher Singh and Zoravar Singh Sandhu settled for the bronze medal in the men's team trap event of the Asian Games on Friday.

Indian shooters had a field day at Karni Singh Range on Friday with the duo of Gagan Narang and Imran Hasan Khan winning gold medal in pairs 50-metre rifle 3 positions before Vijay Kumar swelled the hosts' tally by bagging the yellow metal in singles 25-metre rapid fire pistol in the Commonwealth Games on Friday.

Commonwealth Games gold medallist Manavjit Singh Sandhu on Sunday feared that the harassment of the Indian shooters in the ISSF World Cup in Dorset (UK) will affect their performance in the prestigious event.

Taking a serious view of the Indian shooters' alleged harassment in ISSF World Cup in Dorset (UK), Sports Minister MS Gill on Sunday held a meeting with the Ministry officials, asking them to get the details of the incident.